Chastened, this year we are instead inviting Talker’s to submit your own predictions for the 2017 baseball season. And to the victor shall go the spoils. The winner receives $100 dollars in cold cash.

The premise is simple. Either through email at dkramer3@naz.edu or in the comment section below, make your playoff predictions. You need to pick the Wild Cards for each league, the Division Series winners, the League Championship winners and the World Series winner. Whoever is closest wins $100.

To provide an example, I went to Topp’s to check out the wannabe Street and Smith’s. At first, I could not find a single magazine that actually predicts team winners. The shelf is filled with nothing but mags geared toward fantasy baseball that merely rate individual players. Apostasy!

Like the porn section at an adult magazine store, Topp’s only offers FANTASY magazines that don’t even make real predictions.

Thankfully, I found that USA Today did offer a full season prediction.

As did USA TODAY, you simply have to say who will be the Wild Cards for each league, the Division Series winners, the League Championship winners and the World Series winner. Whoever is closest wins $100. Either through email at dkramer3@naz.edu or in the comment section below, make your playoff predictions.

To start the crystal ball rolling, my predictions this year will be more with the head than the heart. Last year, I was burnt by making the Twins and Yankees sentimental picks.

So — mostly in lock step with USA TODAY — it will be Giants, Mets as NL Wild Cards, Rangers, Blue Jays as AL Wild Cards, NL Division Winners will be Cubs and Dodgers and AL Division Winners will be Red Sox and Indians.

But here my resolve weakens. I pick the Indians to beat the Red Sox and face the Cubs in rematch.

There has not been a World Series rematch since ’77 and ’78 when the Yankees beat the Dodgers twice. Before expansion and expanded playoffs, rematches were not uncommon. No longer today.

In the rematch, much as it loathes me, I pick Cubs over Indians. The last time the Cubs won back to back was 1908 when they beat the Tigers in what was also a rematch of the 1907 world series.

Democrat and Chronicle, October 15th, 1908

from Baseball was better 45 years ago

So send along your own predictions. We haven’t quite decided how to weight each prediction. For example, is it harder to pick the Wild Cards or the Division Series winner?

Talker of the Town is a continuation of conversations begun in three Democratic Chronicle blogs: Make City Schools Better, Unite Rochester and the Editorial Board.
Since February 2013, urban education has been the primary focus. Now, the flowering of topics is limited only by our imaginations.

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